Attack the Block

I think it's hard these days to create a new movie monster that is original and frightening. Movies such as Super 8 and Cloverfield disappointed me in how the monster behaved and looked, and they didn't scare me much.  It was a letdown at the end of each of those movies.

A "block" is an apartment building, in this case a sort of low income/bad neighborhood type. In Attack the Block, a disparate group of characters who live in the same apartment block have to help each other when alien creatures land. The movie starts off with a nurse, Sam (Jodie Whitaker) being mugged by some teenagers headed by Moses (John Boyega). While this is happening, a comet or something destroys a car next to them and Sam escapes. The boys find a mysterious creature in the car, and thinks it is some undiscovered mammal, so they take it to a marijuana dealer who lives in their block, since they believe he has a secured apartment.

Soon other "comets" land and the boys realize they are alien creatures. What they discovered is a female creature, and the rest are the much more larger males, who want to mate with her. The creatures invade the building, and the boys, the nurse, the MJ dealer, some stoners (Nick Frost, Luke Treadaway) and some other kids, all have to think off the tops of their heads to stay one step ahead of the invaders.

While starring a lot of actors I don't know (they are mostly young Brits so I am not familiar with them), I think the casting did a pretty good job, especially with the gang who behaved like typical teenagers I've seen (I don't mean they are thugs, just that their interaction is very teenager-y). The accents and hip hop-y language were a little hard to understand at times, but it was a funny and exciting movie, I think the humor helped make it not too scary. The realization that the males were coming after the female was a little weak but it served its purpose. It was interesting to throw these unrelateable characters together and forcing them to cooperate, and via cooperation, finding out they have some things in common, or least not an uncommon as they first thought.